night crossing to brittany with children/without cabin

[booboobunny]

we are looking to book an overnight ferry crossing to brittany, the only problem is that there are no cabins left, so we would only be able to get reclining seats. not a problem if it was just me and the husband, but we have 3 small children (5,3 and 9 months).

would this be the daftest thing in the world to do? has anyone successfully managed to make an overnight ferry crossing without a cabin with small children. the ferry company advise that a cabin may become available if they have a no show but this is by no means guaranteed.

can anyone offer any wise words on whether we could/should attempt this please?
thanks

I'm sorry, I wouldn't. I've done this crossing dozens of times with a cabin (we live in Brittany) and you still wake up shattered even with a one! DH has done it without accommodation (no DC's) and it was GRIM. He got home ashen, muttered "never again" and slept for almost 24 hours.
Unless you are some kind of night shift worker who is used to not sleeping at all, or can sleep with people walking around your head as well as not worrying constantly about your DC's (assuming they would sleep) I would look at alternatives. Sorry it's not what you wnat to hear, and fwiw it makes me incredibly cross that Brittany Ferries (if that's who you were looking at) will sell crossings knowing there are no cabins left. Hope you manage to sort something out...

We travelled with 12mo twins and a 4.5yo dd with a 4 berth cabin, pulled a mattress onto the floor and the dts slept there. My dh got a reasonable nights sleep, which was critical for getting us to our destination in one piece. We were all still pretty exhausted, so can't imagine how much worse it would be if we didn't have a cabin.

I really wouldn't do this. We travel a couple of times a year on this crossing with our 2 dcs (aged 8 and 6) and there is no way I would consider it without a cabin. In fact, when we were in the same situation 3 years ago, I gave up a day of our holiday to get the overnight Saturday sailing with cabins rather than go for the Friday overnight sailing with no cabins. Could you not look at a different route or go during the day via Caen?

For what it's worth, I'm in Brittany at the moment and came over last weekend on the overnight service. The sailing was full to bursting with lots of people trying to sleep on the chairs. No-one seemed to be getting any sleep.

we used to go skiing by long overnight coach when the dc were small (from when they were 4 and 5 until they were 6 and 7). It is indeed grim for the adults but the children slept just fine (spreading themselves out in their sleep so they took up half our space as well as their own).

thanks everyone for the super helpful advice. i think you've confirmed what i really suspected. i didn't much fancy it, but it was far and away the best crossing for us departure-wise. we are now looking at the fast crossings to cherbourg instead, which mean getting up stupidly early and going a day later, but at least we'll get there feeling vaguely human. thanks all.

I would always get a cabin if possible, even on day crossings as it's somewhere to leave the bags while you wander around the ferry and have a shower. I have had reclining seats (before children) and not slept at all.

I would check out LD lines into Le Havre. The Fast crossings have been really choppy this summer - it was a sick cat rather than sea cat the other Sunday.